'Take No Chances' November

Would you celebrate Thanksgiving if the very thought of food became an insult to your family? This holiday, we sit at the intersection of tradition, market demand, and food recalls & warnings:

• On November 5, 2018, the FDA announced a recall of Duncan Hines Classic White, Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti and Classic Yellow cake mixes. Conagra Brands is collaborating with health officials in connection with a positive finding of Salmonella in a retail sample of these cake mix that may be linked to a Salmonella outbreak currently being investigated by CDC and FDA. 
• On November 8, 2018, the CDC issued an investigation notice regarding a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to raw turkey products. The CDC reissued public warnings prior to the Thanksgiving holiday week.
• On November 17, 2018, the FDA issued an announcement that the Quaker Oats Company Issued a voluntary recall of of Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch Cereal distributed to Target Stores due to the potential presence of Salmonella. 
• On November 17, 2018, the USDA has issued a 'high risk' recall of Ground Beef. This is a Class 1 recall - a "health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death."
• On November 20, 2018, the CDC issued a Food Safety Alert to to Consumers, Restaurants, and Retailers for all Romaine Lettuce contaminated with E.coli.

For some, this may serve solely as a nuisance ... even a wake-up call. For too many families, however, these warnings from the and other agencies comes too soon after recent events.  I talk with families who bring home young children who survived hospital stays, dialysis, renal failure, and other medical conditions caused by foodborne pathogens. I also talk with families who bury their toddlers or parents who did not survive the true burden of these failures in food safety. For these families, a chair forever empty at the family table is not something that can be ignored on Thanksgiving or at any other time of the years ahead.

The CDC estimates that 48 million people become sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases each year in the U.S.

Just with leafy greens alone, the numbers are not to be ignored. Traceability will be the largest hurdle that the FDA and the industry will need to tackle going forward. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb issued a statement on November 1, 2018, in which he declared that “Complicating this already large-scale investigation, the majority of the records collected in this investigation were either paper or handwritten.” Thus the FDA’s emphasis on industry work to standardize record keeping, adopt traceability best practices and state-of-the-art technologies

• This current E.coli O157:H7 in romaine lettuce outbreak has already infected 32 people across 11 states in the US and another 18 in Canada (Ontario and Quebec,) hospitalizing 13 people, including one person who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (a type of kidney failure.)
• Earlier this year, in the spring, an E.coli outbreak – also involving romaine lettuce – resulted in 210 confirmed cases across 36 states, causing almost 100 hospitalizations. FIVE people died. The contamination was traced to the romaine lettuce from multiple farms in Yuma, AZ, with the source believed to be the use of canal water contaminated with cattle feces.
• Late last year, E.coli contaminated romaine lettuce in Canada, and leafy greens in United States resulted in reports of 25 illnesses across 15 states, 9 hospitalizations, and 1 death.
• In 2006, some 200 E. coli O157:H7 illnesses tied to fresh spinach were reported to CDC from 26 states. 100 of these ill (half) were hospitalized and 31 developed HUS. Three deaths are attributed to this outbreak, including two elderly women and a 2-year-old child.
• A 2015 study of leafy vegetable-associated outbreaks - reported to the CDC between 1973 and 2012 - revealed 606 leafy vegetable-associated outbreaks, with 20,003 associated illnesses, 1030 hospitalizations, and 19 deaths. On average, leafy vegetable-associated outbreaks were larger than those attributed to other food types. The pathogens that most often caused leafy vegetable-associated outbreaks were norovirus (55%), Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) (18%), and Salmonella (11%). 

________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Darin Detwiler, LP.D., M.A.Ed., is the Assistant Dean at Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies. He is a professor of food regulatory policy, specializing in food safety, global economics of food and agriculture, Blockchain, and food authenticity. He additionally advises industry, NGOs, and government agencies, addressing food safety and authenticity issues in the U.S. and abroad. Detwiler recently received the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) Distinguished Service Award (Sponsored by Food Safety Magazine.)

Over the past 25 years, Detwiler has consulted with the USDA in strengthening food safety policies, particularly in the areas of consumer education, product labeling, and their pathogen reduction program. In addition to serving in various educational and advisory capacities, his committee work includes appointments to two terms as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection for USDA, where his work improved standards and policies related to risk-based sampling. As the senior policy coordinator for a national food safety organization, he evaluated pertinent regulatory issues for the USDA and the FDA as a consumer advocate in their stakeholder advisory group. He later served two terms as a council member for the Conference for Food Protection, identifying and addressing emerging problems of food safety to influence model laws and regulations among all government agencies. Detwiler received his doctorate of law and policy from Northeastern University with a research focus on state implementation of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.